Doom of the Dragon (49 page)

“I do not lie, Fala,” said Kahg. “As those who know me can attest.”

He could see that the two males were now truly concerned. The portal used by the dragons to travel between realms was located in the land of the Cyclopes—a difficult journey for these dragons, who had no ships to ferry them. The land of Cyclopes was far away and the dragons would have to stop often to rest and find food.

“My mate and young are in that realm, Fala,” said one of the males.

“The city has fallen,” said the other. “And where are the Stormlords? They have returned to the Realm of Fire, and so should we.”

“You had best make haste,” Kahg suggested. “Once the portal starts to close, nothing will stop it.”

The two males exchanged alarmed glances, spread their wings and prepared to depart.

“You promised to serve me!” Fala cried.

“We have served you,” one of the males said, twisting his head to look back at her. “And we have nothing to show for our pains.”

The two flew off. Fala glowered after them, fuming, bits of molten magma drooling from her clenched jaws. Kahg watched her with a certain amount of pity. He did not fear that she would attack him. She was trying to find a way to leave while still maintaining some shred of dignity.

“What will you do, mighty Kahg?” Fala asked, sulky and sullen and grudgingly admiring.

“I haven't made up my mind,” Kahg replied with airy nonconcern, as if both realms were his for the asking.

Kahg was in no hurry. He believed the dragon's portal might remain open for some time, longer than he had led the naïve young males to believe. The sundered realms, with nothing to connect them, would drift apart and eventually the dragon's portal would close.

“You should return with me, mighty Kahg,” said Fala. “We would make a good team. The Realm of Fire is your homeland.”

Kahg considered her words. He had no intention of teaming up with Fala, who was far too young and immature, but he could go back to heal his wounds.

He realized in that moment he didn't want to go back. He had no young in the Realm of Fire. His children had long since grown up and gone out on their own. He detested that world and its brutal savagery, cruel men, and horrific monsters. Perhaps the Stormlords could bring about a change for the better, but if so, their fight would be long and hard and bitter and he wanted no part of it.

Kahg had come to like this Realm of Stone with its humans whose names he could never remember. He enjoyed observing, with a touch of sympathy, their ceaseless struggles to overcome the myriad obstacles the gods threw in their path. He even admired their vain attempts to find meaning in the meaningless until the threads of their wyrds snapped and their fleeting and fragile lives ended.

As he was thinking, pondering, he caught sight of a beam of golden light shining from the darkest part of the fallen city. Kahg stared at the glow in wonder and dawning hope.

The light shone brighter and brighter, so that the radiance burned his eyes and Kahg had to turn away. Suddenly the voices of the soldiers who had rushed inside the city to loot and burn, rape and steal rose in cries of terror and the light flashed and went out. The city was gone, the plateau barren and empty.

Fala gasped in shock. “The city was rich, filled with casks of jewels! Aelon promised them to me! Where did it go? What happened?”

“If it is any comfort, wretched Fala, the jewels were never there, just as the city was never truly there,” said Kahg. “It was all illusion. The jewels were no more real than Aelon's promises.”

“I hate this world,” Fala snarled, gnashing her fangs. “I am going home.”

“You might want to hurry,” said Kahg softly.

The golden light blazed forth, as bright and hot as the sun.

Reborn, the Great Dragon Ilyrion spread her vast wings, lifted her proud and beautiful head, and sprang up off the earth, causing the ground to tremble. She soared into the sky, showering sparks of golden fire.

Fala turned tail and fled.

The Dragon Kahg stared a moment, enraptured, and then flew slowly toward the magnificent dragon, whose wings seemed to span the heavens. Her gaze turned to him.

She is not afraid, he realized. What has she to fear?

Her gaze was questioning.
What do you want of me?

“It would be my honor and my joy to join you in flight, Ilyrion,” said Kahg reverently. “Just once. Before you leave.”

The dragon graciously inclined her head, then dove toward the ground, sending the terror-stricken humans into a frenzy of panic, all except a group of warriors—humans, ogres, and Cyclopes—who were gathered protectively around their fallen chief.

“Please don't hurt them, great Ilyrion,” said Kahg, both proud and apologetic. “Those people are mine.”

The dragon shifted her head to regard him and he saw tears shining in her eyes.

And they are mine,
said Ilyrion.

She glided over the waves and in the proudest moment of his life, the Dragon Kahg joined the Great Dragon Ilyrion in flight.

 

CHAPTER

48

Skylan Ivorson arrived at Torval's Hall to find that it was gone, burned to the ground. An old man and an old woman stood together among the ashes. The bitter wind of coming winter caught the smoke that rose from the black, smoldering beams and blew it away. Skylan wondered who these two were for a moment and then, with a sorrowful heart, he recognized Torval and Vindrash.

The two had cast aside their armor and put down their weapons, for the long fight had ended. They were dressed in clothes such as wanderers wear, those who are going on a long journey, far from home.

“Ah, Fish Knife,” said Torval, catching sight of him. “Come to say good-bye?”

The god's gray hair hung in two thick braids down his chest. He wore a simple leather tunic and a fur-lined cloak, leather trousers and boots, and a warm fur cap. His sword was gone. He carried a worn, gnarled walking stick.

Skylan was dismayed. “Do not leave us, lord! Ilyrion has returned. Aelon has fled!”

“Our time is ended here,” said Torval. “The world will be in good hands.”

“Better hands than ours,” said Vindrash.

Like Torval, she was dressed in a simple leather tunic and trousers with a fur cloak around her shoulders. Her silver-white hair was done in a single braid wrapped around her head.

Skylan looked for his friends. “Where are Garn and my father and Chloe and Acronis? I had hoped to join them.”

“They are in the care of others now,” said Vindrash. “Their peace and rest will be assured.”

Skylan shook his head in denial. “What of your friends, the other gods? What of them?”

“Sund is dead. In his madness, he killed himself. Joabis died, valiantly fighting to defend his souls. Hevis has vanished. We have no idea where he has gone. Skoval and Aylis and the rest wait for us beyond.”

“Let me come with you, lord,” Skylan begged. “Let me serve you still.”

Torval smiled, his blue eyes, almost lost in a web of wrinkles, warmed.

“I have worked long and hard and taken trouble to forge you, Skylan Ivorson,” said Torval. “I won't cast you aside.”

“The world is going to change for the better, but our people will find the change difficult to bear,” Vindrash added. “They will need your wisdom and your guidance.”

Torval clapped Skylan on the shoulder. “You were an arrogant, selfish young fool, Fish Knife. Many times I despaired of you, but you came out better than I expected.”

“What he means is that you have made us proud,” said Vindrash.

Skylan could not talk for his grief, could scarcely see for his tears. And yet joy filled his heart, for he knew that he would live and he would go back to be with Aylaen. They would grow old together, old and toothless.

Torval rested a hand on his shoulder. “Sometimes a hero is not one who gives his life for his people, but one who gives his life
to
his people. Remember that.”

“I will remember
you
, Torval,” said Skylan. “And I will honor you always. And when the span of our wyrds end, Aylaen and I will find you.”

Torval cast a troubled glance at Vindrash, who slightly shook her head. Coming to Skylan, she embraced him and kissed him on the cheek. Torval reached out his hand to her. They looked one last time at the wreckage of their Hall and then, clasping hands, they walked away.

Skylan wondered why they had looked at him so strangely and why Vindrash had kissed him so tenderly, as if she grieved for him. He pondered it as he went to visit the Norn, the three old women who spun and wove and cut the wyrds of men and gods at the foot of the World Tree.

The World Tree remained; it was flourishing. The Norn were nowhere to be found. They had packed up their spindles and their wheel and departed.

Skylan himself was about to leave when he saw something shining amid the roots of the World Tree: a pair of shears, the ends blunted, the blades rusted. A single thread, unbroken, stretched on and on.

Alone.

 

CHAPTER

49

The Great Dragon Ilyrion stood guard over the world until the Faceless God, Aelon, fled, never to return. Ilyrion bid farewell to Torval and the Vindrasi gods, bearing no grudge, feeling only a sorrowful melancholy for the fall of what once had been mighty. She gave greeting to the Gods of Raj, who watched her from a respectful distance, glad for her help, but eager for her to be gone.

Ilyrion flew over the empty, desolate plateau and the blood-soaked sand.

At the coming of the dragon, the soldiers cast down their weapons and ran. They would have a long trek home, for the Empire of Oran was many hundreds of miles to the north. Their magnificent fleet had been reduced to scraps of charred wood floating sluggishly on the waves. Flames had destroyed their tents and their food supplies and their wagons, leaving the survivors nothing except their lives.

Ilyrion let them go, not bothering to hunt them. With winter coming on, they would suffer enough.

Far below, a knot of priests huddled for shelter from the cold wind behind some rocks, crying out to Aelon to save them. Their prayers would go unanswered, of course. Eventually, cold and hungry, the priests would give up and start walking.

Ilyrion slowed her flight and circled in the air above the victors, a small band of warriors—ogres, Cyclopes, and Vindrasi—tending to their wounded, guarding their dead, and their fallen chief.

Ilyrion gazed down upon Skylan Ivorson with sorrow and fond pride. He had chosen his time to die and he would not understand, at first, why his choice had been denied him. He would come to, eventually, as he would come to understand the choice Aylaen had made.

Ilyrion dipped her wings in salute and then turned her head and left them. Gliding over sea and over land, she flew among the clouds and the rain, the sun and wind, gazing down upon the world she had loved and claimed as her own for so long. At her death, she had let her blood rain down upon the world. In her rebirth, she rained down her joy, with each drop bringing life to a world that had been withering, dying.

Her world restored, Ilyrion shifted her gaze to the heavens, to blazing stars and worlds unnumbered and the vast expanse of boundless, limitless time through which she could fly free for eons upon eons. She lifted her head and spread her wings and soared into the universe.

The Great Dragon Ilyrion was going home.

 

CHAPTER

50

Skylan was adrift on a burning sea. Flames spread over an oil-covered surface, so that he was forced to dive into the dark water to escape them. His lungs bursting, he swam back to the surface to breathe, only to be burned in the fire.

He battled for days it seemed, tormented by pain and fear, longing to sink below the waves and give up the struggle. Every time he tried to let go, a touch, a voice, would call him back.

And then one day he wearily swam again to the surface to find that the flames had gone out. The night had ended. The sun was shining.

He opened his eyes. He was lying in a bed with a colorful blanket spread over him in an unfamiliar place—a crude wooden hut. Sunlight streamed through a door that was little more than a hole in the wall. The air was warm and smelled of green living things and the sea.

“You have come back to us,” said Dela Eden.

She was sitting on the floor beside his bed, which he could now see was low to the ground. Rising to her knees, she placed her arm under his head and lifted him and pressed a cup to his lips.

“Drink this,” she said.

He was thirsty and he drank. The liquid had a slightly bitter taste, but it eased his thirst.

Dela Eden gently laid him back on the bed.

“I want to see Aylaen,” Skylan said.

He expected to hear his voice and was startled when the words came out in a hoarse whisper.

“She is resting,” said Dela Eden.

“Is she all right? She is not hurt,” Skylan pressed.

Dela Eden smiled. “Drink some more. You have nearly burnt up with the fever.”

He obeyed, sipping the liquid and looking around at his strange surroundings. “Where am I?”

“You are in a hut in the Cyclopes village,” said Dela Eden. “We found you dead on the battlefield. The great dragon healed your wounds and we brought you here to tend to you. Now you must sleep.”

He was weary, but he could not rest, not until he knew what had happened.

“The battle…,” said Skylan. “My men…”

“Ilyrion struck terror into the hearts of the Sinarians and they fled. Their ships all burned. They will have to walk home. A very long walk,” Dela Eden said drily.

“What of the tally of the dead?” Skylan asked.

“Erdmun was killed, as well as the ogre shaman, Raven's-foot, and many others, though not so many as you might think. We built a pyre on the beach below the ruins of the stormhold and sent their souls to the Gods of Raj.”